Ivory and ivory artefacts seized in Malayattoor elephant poaching case.
A poorly lit workshop in Kozhikode. Plainclothes forest guards are waiting outside when their informant signals with a quick flick of a handkerchief, a sign that the “goods” are inside. Moments later, the team burst in and catch the trader in the act with what appears to be a tiger skin neatly folded in an old suitcase. But as they unwrap the skin, a mouse flies out, revealing the skin’s long abandonment and a secret the trafficker has been hiding for years.
Harsh and tense scenes like these fill former Deputy Conservator of Forests JR Ani Naagamanikyam’s new book, Gajamuthu, Vellimoonga: Vanam Kallakkadathinte Kanappurangal’ (Snake Stone, Elephant Pearl, Burnt Owl: The Invisible Side of Wildlife Smuggling, which is often a trade secret in the Kerala world.
From the snake stone scam and ivory smuggling ring in Kerala to raids on tiger skin traders and poachers in the Western Ghats, the veteran officer, who also served as Divisional Forest Officer of the Flying Squad, sheds rare light on the real undercover operations carried out by the forest department to curb the illegal trade in tiger skin products and more.
Tiger claws
In one chapter, Mr. Ani details a tense operation in Kozhikode, where his team tracked down rare tiger fur being traded in a town workshop, only to discover that many of the so-called ‘skins’ were actually dyed cattle hides, carefully painted to deceive buyers. The next episode, set in the Silent Valley, features a high-risk mission to retrieve a tiger skin from an armed poacher, which took place deep in rain-soaked forests that lacked mobile connectivity.
Equally riveting are his accounts of the collapse of the ivory trade, from encounters with notorious poachers like ‘Kezha’ Vasu and ‘Karadi’ Raghavan to unraveling the tangled smuggling networks that stretched from Wayanad to Tamil Nadu.
Pangolin rescued from wildlife traders.
Mr. Ani also exposes an underbelly of wildlife-related superstitions and scams. It delves into how gullible buyers were tricked into buying “snake stones”, “elephant pearls” and “rice attracting” pots, which are fake relics marketed with pseudo-scientific demonstrations. These scams, often operating under the guise of traditional healing or occult powers, have become fronts for illegal wildlife trade and financial exploitation.
It also details how scammers falsely claim that animals such as barn owls, red boa constrictors and star tortoises contain traces of iridium, which gives them magical or “money-attracting” powers. Such superstitions fueled a multi-million dollar black market in India and abroad.
Innocent creatures are captured, tortured and sold for such mythical “miracle powers”, laments a former official.
Published – 11 Nov 2025 20:45 IST
